Author(s): John Milton

Poetry

These three masterworks placed the great seventeenth-century English poet Milton beside Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, and Virgil in the pantheon of world literature. A monumental achievement, Paradise Lost is the epic poem about the magnificent Lucifer, whose failed rebellion against Heaven's tyranny casts him into the darkness of Hell and leads to man's fall from grace. Samson Agonistes, the greatest English drama modelled on the Greek classics, depicts blinded, once-mighty Samson regaining his strength as God's champion and delivering his people-while destroying himself and his captors. And 'Lycidas' is an immortal elegy on lost hopes and the nature of fate. Written in a grand style of superb power, these works display a majesty of language, a sublime wealth of detail, and the unmistakable genius of one of literature's greatest minds. With an Introduction by Edwrd M. Cifelli, Ph.D., and a New Afterword by Regina Marler Annotated by Edward Le Comte.